Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Bit of a work crisis here at NigeCorp (trouble in the turbine halls, messy, don't ask), but here are a few ponder points...The Turner Prize - 'Art made by people for people', to quote one of the judges, or the Yarts establishment in an annual frenzy of mutual masturbation? They might at least change the name to protect the innocent and let them rest in peace... This is art all right, but is it beautiful? No point in asking if it's worth that kind of money - at that level of the market it's meaningless. The forthcoming movie of Brideshead Revisited - do we need this? The fondly remembered TV series was actually turgid stuff, far too long and literal. Come to that, is the book that good?

Well, I think the first three are self-evident. As to whether Brideshead is a great book, I believe its virtues are underestimated because of the economy of Waugh's style and because of its setting within a particularly unsympathetic social milieu. Forget about it as a social document, it's a masterpiece of fiction.

Susan has a very good point, imho. In fact, if the Master continues to ponder in the high Californian desert and so his post falls vacant, Bill Nighy would make an excellent alternative Master. I wonder if this counts as plotting.

No strong feelings about Brideshead. Not my fave Waugh novel and also linked in my head with Stephen Fry, for some reason. I think BR and the whole bright young things bit has been overdone and may need a rest, like for about a century.

Looking carefully at an exhibited death mask of Turner a year or so ago I noted that the old fellow was clearly toothless by the time of his death. I've never been able to think of the Turner Prize in quite the same light since that moment of revelation.

A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.